


Something in the Blood

by norgbelulah



Series: Something Monstrous [1]
Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Fire in the Hole, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mindfuck, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-04 02:11:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens returns to Harlan, Kentucky in pursuit of his old friend Boyd Crowder, he doesn't find a white supremacist, anti-government, militia leader.  </p>
<p>He finds a monster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something in the Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to scioscribe and thornfield_girl for being wonderful betas and reigning me in a little on this one. ;)

Boyd Crowder’s hands were cold. 

That’s the thing that’s stuck in his mind, coming up again and again in his thoughts as he goes over and over it, their first meeting in more than 20 years. Boyd’s hands had been cold across his shoulders, and then he hadn’t noticed anymore, because something happened.

Raylan is damned if he could properly articulate--even in a fake conversation with his own mind--what it was that had happened. Boyd’s hands were cold and then it didn’t matter because there was a strange warmth between them, or maybe it was only in Raylan. 

He’d never been so happy to see anybody in his life.

He’d smiled real big and Boyd had returned that smile and for a minute, everything was so nice. Until Raylan remembered what it was he was there for, outside that rundown church. The weed church was blown up and Boyd’s brother was dead from Ava’s shot and Raylan couldn’t believe he was back in fucking Harlan, Kentucky.

Still, he didn’t stop smiling.

Boyd looked real good. So good, in fact, Raylan didn’t want to let go of him.

Boyd was dressed all in black, a slim pair of jeans and a clean button-down shirt, and he didn’t look a day over 25. His eyes seemed darker, even than they had ever been in the mine, and his smile was pearly white, somehow sharp. For a moment, Raylan had been frightened.

Boyd squeezed his arm, just once, and that feeling went away as Boyd’s hand left him, still cool, but Raylan hadn’t been thinking about that either. Boyd was asking him inside, for a drink, how he felt about being in Kentucky after so long away.

Raylan went with him. He didn’t even think about it.

He thinks now he probably shouldn’t have. He let himself get too close too fast, and now he is here at Ava’s, standing outside her door, and not walking in yet. The door is open, except for the screen, but Raylan’s hand is hovering above the handle, hesitating.

Ava had sounded so strange on the phone, strange enough he knows Boyd is here. There’s something off about all of it. How everybody is about Boyd--scared shitless enough to tell him to stay away, even Helen--and his place, and the people he keeps around.

Like that parolee, Devil, who just got his release for selling dope, looking to start shit. He had crazy eyes and they strayed to Boyd so often, like he needed permission just to draw breath. Boyd had looked back at him with something like amusement or fondness. He came close once or twice to touching him, just on the arm or shoulder and Devil had leaned right into it, then got this even crazier look in his eye when Boyd moved away, looking at Raylan.

And that dumb as shit croc-hunter, Dewey, had looked like death was coming for him when he said, “But Boyd tol’ me to bring him Ava.” His hands shook.

He’d scampered away when Raylan pulled up and Devil went right off as soon as Boyd told him to go get those glasses. He hadn’t even looked back.

The church was trussed up in black curtains, like he was going for some kind of Satanic thing, except they were all drawn back to let the light in and there were blankets and cushions all on the pews. There was a topless girl passed out on one, no drug paraphernalia to be seen around her person, though Raylan supposed Boyd was careful enough to remove it had it been there before.

There was blood on everything.

Not like Carrie-style buckets of blood, but as though it had dripped from open wounds onto the floor, or had been on people’s hands and then they touched something, like the arms of the pews or a doorknob or a window pane. It was everywhere.

Raylan asked, “You slaughtering pigs in here?”

Boyd had only smiled and poured him that ‘shine.

Raylan’s head had already been spinning before the ‘shine and then Boyd asked him about his daddy.

“You seen your daddy yet?”

“Nope,” Raylan told him.

Boyd started talking then about old times--Arlo and his schemes, his own daddy for a minute, stuck in jail, and then the mine.

“You remember when we was robbing mines? Running like hell out of there? I still remember that fear.” He looked thoughtful and his eyes were stuck on Raylan’s.

Raylan didn’t have time to think that was a strange thing to say, he certainly thought a lot about it later, but at that moment all he said was, “Yeah, Boyd. I remember.”

“You’re here about that weed church, ain’t you?” Boyd asked a beat later.

Raylan wasn’t sure, still isn’t, how his interrogation got so off-balance. He remembers blinking a lot, but otherwise feeling all right, besides the ‘shine messing with his head. “We figure they got on your bad side, or on the bad side of someone you know. A favor for some other associates of your friend Devil, I’m guessing,” Raylan had really laid it out for him, but Boyd’s calm smile never faltered. “Can’t prove anything, of course--”

“No, surely not,” Boyd said softly.

“But I just got one actual question for you, Boyd,” Raylan had been frowning hard, so wrong-footed now it was almost funny.

Boyd raised his hands then, as if in surrender. “Shoot, Raylan.”

“Why the hell did you blow that place up? Why not just walk in there and scare everybody shitless. That seems to be your M.O. according to all the other people ‘round here I’ve spoken to.” Raylan paused and Boyd opened his mouth, but he held his hand up fast and added, “Oh, two questions--where the hell is Jared Hale?”

Boyd’s brows shot up at that one. “I’m sorry, who?”

“Some kid from Tulsa. His driver’s license was in a truck parked on Tate’s Creek Bridge, not very far from your explosion last night. There’s blood all over the driver’s seat. No body.”

“And you think I have something to do with that?” 

Boyd was smiling at him again and Raylan felt that warmth from before. Boyd’s smile was hard to look away from. Raylan remembers thinking his teeth looked sharper. 

“Call it a hunch,” he ground out between his teeth. That warmth had moved lower and Raylan knew his eyes widened as he realized what it was.

If Boyd noticed, he didn’t say anything.

Raylan swallowed, wishing he had something to drink besides more shine and added, “Anyway. I didn’t come here just to tell you what I’m thinkin’. We got a little line-up going on up in Lexington tomorrow--”

“Sunday, Raylan?”

“Black curtains in a church, Boyd?”

A shiver ran down Raylan’s spine when he laughed.

“I’d appreciate it, if you came to that line-up,” Raylan said flatly. 

His breathing had sped up and Boyd wasn’t looking into his eyes anymore. He was looking somewhere lower, like his shoulder or his neck.

“I bet you would,” he replied, almost absently.

Raylan backed up a step.

“I never forgot you, Raylan,” he said, looking back up and into Raylan’s eyes.

He experienced a moment of vertigo then and couldn’t move.

“Did you forget me?”

Raylan had just told Art Mullen they weren’t buddies. “No.” But they hadn’t been anything more than buddies either. He didn’t want to take any more steps backward. He wanted to be close again. Warm.

Raylan was starting to freak out. What was wrong with him?

“Would you draw on me, Raylan?”

Raylan thought, “no,” for longer than he should before he said, “You make me pull, I’ll put you down.”

Boyd shook his head as Raylan walked out.

The line-up was a bust. When the witness’ eyes fell on Boyd, number four, Raylan watched them glaze over--no one else was looking--then the man blinked and he shook his head and he said, “It wasn’t any of these guys.” He was dead certain. Minutes before, he’d picked Boyd’s photo--the least blurry one they could find out of a stack of them. “He’s not here,” he said.

Raylan walked Boyd out after. But he didn’t speak. Raylan was waiting for a challenge, a question, but they reached his truck where Dewey and Devil were waiting for him, all bright eyes looking right at their boss, and all Boyd said to him was, “I’ll see you later, Raylan.”

There was a shrinking feeling in Raylan’s stomach, one he could have only--albeit grudgingly--associated as fear. But he knew, and he hated, how much it felt like excitement too.

It’s what he’s feeling now as he’s still standing outside Ava’s door, hand now on the knob. His stomach is in knots. His heart is beating too fast--

“Come on in, Raylan.” Ava’s on the other side of the screen now, smiling wide. Raylan frowns. “Boyd knows you’re here.” She sounds excited too, as she pulls him inside the house.

She was so frightened before.

When he was here the first time, she’d come at him with a shotgun, thinking he was a man of Boyd’s, before she recognized him. Her hands were shaking too and she kept on saying, “You don’t know, Raylan. You don’t know.”

When Raylan said Boyd was coming to kill her, when he said he was going to make sure that didn’t happen, she said again, “You don’t know, Raylan. He don’t want to _kill_ me. He wants--he _changes_ people.” She’d whispered, “He’s a monster.”

“What does that mean?” he’d asked her. But he she wouldn’t say anything else except to beg him not to go find Boyd. She wouldn’t even tell him where to go until he told her it might look like she was helping Boyd.

She’d been so afraid before he left, he asked her to come back up to Lexington, stay in a safe house if she needed, but she only shook her head again. “He’d find me. He’s--I just couldn’t stand it anymore, but I-I made a huge mistake, Raylan. Bowman would have been better than--” And after that she clammed up again and Raylan had to leave her, had to go find Boyd.

Before he left he said, “You call me. Call me if he comes for you.”

And she had. But she sounded so weird on the phone and she hadn’t said Boyd was there. She asked him if he heard the chicken frying. She said it would be done when he got there. They hadn't talked at all about dinner. Her voice had sounded far away and the last thing she said was, “Hurry, Raylan.”

He didn’t tell Art.

Maybe he should have, but something stopped him. He wished to hell now that he had.

Boyd is sitting at Ava’s dining room table, with the chicken and all the fixings laid out. Ava takes the shotgun from Raylan’s hands, still smiling vaguely. She says, “You ain’t gonna need this, honey.” Raylan is pretty sure that he does need it. 

As she takes the weapon, he notices a mark on her arm, beneath her wrist, like a cut, but more ragged, more like a bite. “You’re bleeding,” he tells her. He looks up and sees Boyd licking his lips. He shudders and he feels something like dread rise up from that fear that was nestled in his stomach.

Something is terribly wrong.

“It’s all right,” Ava says, moving away from him. She looks terribly pale. “Everything’s gonna be all right, Raylan. For you too.”

Raylan doesn’t know what that means. He thinks about what she said. How Boyd changes people. But how does he do that? What the fuck is going on here? 

Boyd is watching Ava. As soon as his gaze landed on her, she started moving towards him, like a moth to a flame. Her smile widens as he takes her hand, the one that is cut. She shivers, but in clearly pleasure.

"Ava gets it now," Boyd says, still looking just at her. "Ava ain't afraid no more, is she?"

"No," she says. "No." He pulls her into his lap lightening quick then, but she doesn't look surprised or afraid at all. Her eyelids are heavy, bedroom eyes, and she smiles slowly up at him. "Kiss me again, Boyd," she whispers. "The sharp one. It feels so nice."

Boyd grins at her. "Not right now. I want to talk to Raylan." He pushes her off him and she goes lightly, kissing Raylan on the cheek as she passes him. Her lips are dry against his skin.

"What the fuck, Boyd?"

Boyd just raises his eyebrows then motions Raylan to sit. "Make yourself at home, Raylan."

Raylan sees the .45 on the table now. He's not sure how he didn't notice it before. He should have been looking for it. Boyd's hand is near it. His fingernails look sharp somehow. Raylan blinks and they look normal again.

He sits down.

"You should've seen her before," Raylan says, reminding himself that's how it was. That he wasn't remembering it wrong. "She was...she was so scared of you."

"But you weren't, were you?"

Raylan thinks he didn't know to be. Now he's not so sure. But he says, and he makes the mistake of looking right into Boyd's eyes as he speaks, "No."

Raylan feels caught in Boyd's gaze, like Ava must have. He doesn't move, he just keeps looking.

Boyd's eyes look so dark, Raylan feels compelled to say. "They used to be brown. Brown and green." His voice sounds far away.

Boyd grins and that warm thing licks up around Raylan's belly, like a sputtering flame. "I'm pleased you remembered, Raylan. You're right."

Boyd is pleased. Those words sound strangely good to him.

"What is going on here?" he asks.

"Why did you give that man 24 hours to leave town, Raylan?"

"I saw him put a stick of dynamite in a man's mouth and let it blow. A civilian. In Nicaragua. Couldn't do anything then. Couldn't suffer him to live in my city. I thought," Raylan pauses, unsure why he's so ready to tell Boyd about this. He's still looking into Boyd's eyes, so dark, like before. But now, he thinks he sees a bit of red in them, deep inside. "I thought giving him a chance to skip town was as much mercy as he deserved."

"You knew he wouldn't."

"Yeah, I knew."

"Would it surprise you, Raylan, to hear I've probably done worse in my time than that man you shot?"

Raylan thinks no. He says, "Not where I could bear witness."

"Not yet," Boyd murmurs. "Where was his gun, Raylan?"

"Between his legs."

"And he was at a table like we are now?"

"Yeah, but no food. Just the silverware--" Raylan pauses, remembering. "No, he was eating. I wasn't." Something about Boyd's eyes is making him want to be honest. Too honest. 

What is he even doing here? Ava is fine. Or seems that way. They can't pin anything on Boyd. Something is wrong, and dangerous, and much too exciting to back out now. Raylan is still warm and he doesn't understand why.

"Where was your gun?"

"Holstered."

Boyd grins again, pleased. Raylan's dick is hard. What? 

"Was it?"

"Yeah. It was."

"Holstered like it is right now?" There's a challenge in Boyd's tone and Raylan wakes up just enough to hear it.

"Yes."

He draws, on instinct, as Boyd reaches for the .45 and he shoots, half-standing, before Boyd gets off a shot. Raylan blinks and sees Boyd's gun is pointed square at him, he could shoot, and he hasn't--there's a smoking bullet in Boyd's chest, lodged deep. He caught it and he pushed back on it and it didn't bowl him over. His eyes are real red now and his teeth are real sharp and he's smiling, so wide. 

He stands and Raylan pulls the trigger again. He steps to the side of the table and Raylan shoots once more, he's walking forward and Raylan empties the clip.

Boyd blinks. There is more red in his eyes, they're glistening, like he's about to cry blood. He tilts his head, but he smiles like Raylan's done something amusing. "You shot me," he said.

"Y-you called it," Raylan whispers hoarsely.

"They told you I served in Desert Storm, didn't they, Raylan?" he asks.

"Yeah." Raylan's voice is broken, harsh.

"I flew back to the States through New Orleans. Picked a boy up in that town wasn't no boy. You get me?" Boyd says. 

"N-no." Raylan is looking at how sharp Boyd's teeth are. He wants to back up against the wall. He looks in Boyd's eyes again, his gaze drawn there, and he can't move--except to drop the gun.

"You will," Boyd croons to him.

Somehow it sounds reassuring.

Boyd touches his face. Boyd's hands aren't so cold, but they aren't real warm either. It's Raylan that feels warm. Too warm. He closes his eyes, but Boyd's fingernails prick at his skin and he opens them again. Boyd's eyes are real red. Raylan feels himself being drawn into them again.

"You scared now, Raylan?"

Raylan opens his mouth, but he doesn't know what to say. "I-I don't know." He almost feels like he doesn't know what fear is anymore. This is too good for fear, too real, too...warm. 

"That's all right," Boyd tells him softly. "That's good." His fingers slide around the back of Raylan's neck. His pulse is beating fast and Boyd's eyes are wide, excited. "That's what I wanted."

Raylan groans because he can't believe how hard he is now. "Wh-" he whuffs, softly, unsure. He can't even form a question about it.

"You surprised to hear about the boy I had, Raylan?" Boyd asks him. 

Raylan blinks. Maybe he's not. Boyd was always so fearless. "Not surprised you went for it, that's what you wanted." 

He doesn't understand how something that close to a full sentence passed through his lips. Not even his thoughts are so coherent. He's a haze of confusion and fear and want.

Boyd grins at him. "You knew me so well, Raylan. How is it you didn't know how I wanted you?"

Raylan wavers at those words and Boyd lets him stumble back into the wall, going fast with him, knocking his chair out of the way, and keeping him on his feet. Raylan doesn't know why he thought it like that--Boyd _let_ him.

"You're doing so well, Raylan," Boyd says, carding sharp nails through the hair at the base of his neck. Raylan shivers, at the touch, at the praise. "I'm laying it on you real thick, baby. No one's gonna love me like you will."

His other hand moves to cup Raylan's hard on.

Raylan makes an inhuman noise. He thinks about Ava’s words yesterday. He thinks about his empty clip.

Boyd’s not warm. It’s only Raylan.

He’s a monster.

Raylan’s looked away, but Boyd draws his eyes back to him. And oh, Raylan is really lost now. He knows it. 

“I usually don’t exert myself this way, Raylan,” Boyd’s voice sounds like...something good, like music, mournful bluegrass. “Usually it takes the bite. It takes a few. Do you know how I want you, Raylan?”

Raylan moans.

“I’m making you feel it, boy. Do you like it?”

Raylan raises his arms, which had been loose and limp at his sides. He claws at Boyd wanting him closer, barely understanding why.

Boyd smiles at him. His teeth really are sharp now, but they’re beautiful. Raylan likes them, despite his fear, which has suddenly receded. 

“What are you thinking, Raylan?” Boyd asks, looking into his eyes like he already knows.

“I like your teeth.”

“Good,” he croons. “That’s so good. Do you want me to kiss you, Raylan?”

Raylan doesn't stop to think. Boyd won’t let him. “Yes,” he says.

Boyd’s lips press fast again Raylan’s and they aren’t warm, but Raylan doesn’t care at all. He claws again at Boyd’s back and Boyd tastes like old blood and dust and years gone by. Raylan shuts his eyes tight and Boyd’s still got his other hand, the one not clamped tight at the back of Raylan’s neck, pressed against his cock, which is throbbing in his jeans. 

Raylan remembers what Ava said, about Boyd’s kiss being sharp, and he thinks it isn’t until Boyd’s lips are on his neck and he sinks his teeth in.

It’s a sensation of falling, but also of being led. It’s a pinprick followed by a warm tongue. It’s being swallowed up and then drained away to nothing. It’s _wonderful_.

It twists him up and all his muscles quiver. He thinks he cries out and there’s a sudden warmth between his legs. It’s followed by a rising wave of blissful elation. Raylan’s skin tingles with it and his thoughts grow fuzzy, soft. He smiles. His fingers clutch at Boyd and they shake. 

Boyd pulls away from his neck, hesitatingly, like he doesn’t really want to. He laps at the slow trickle of wetness that flows from the kiss, the sharp one, like Ava said. It was--it _is_ very nice.

Boyd regards him thoughtfully, with a pleased smile. He touches his face. His hands are warmer now and Raylan feels the shiver of cold, like Boyd took the warmth from him. No, like Raylan _gave it to him_. He likes that better. That’s what happened. He smiles wider.

“That’s better,” Boyd murmurs and oh, Raylan loves the sound of his voice. “No more confusion. No more fear. Is there, Raylan?”

“No,” he says soft and slow, because it’s true, and because Boyd asked. Boyd kisses his forehead and Raylan closes his eyes. Boyd is pleased. Maybe he’ll kiss Raylan again, the sharp kind. 

“You need to lie down, Raylan,” Boyd tells him and Raylan nods. 

He thinks he’ll believe anything Boyd says now, do anything he asks. He blinks and looks at Boyd, brows furrowed. “You changed me,” he says.

“Don’t you like it?” Boyd kisses him again. There’s blood on his teeth, which are so sharp and good. Raylan can taste it. Everything feels so nice. Raylan likes it.

He doesn’t speak because Boyd knows his answer when he smiles again, wide and true. All for Boyd. “Kiss me again?”

“Lie down first,” Boyd says fondly. 

Raylan loves him, suddenly and unadulteratedly. Boyd’s going to kiss him again.

Raylan doesn’t remember climbing the stairs or being laid down in Ava’s bed. He wakes next to her, her fingers are combing through his hair. There’s a kiss at her collarbone and her smile is real pretty. There are dark circles under her eyes.

“You remember how scared I was?” she asks him, her voice light and airy.

“Yeah.”

“All that’s gone now. Boyd drank it up for me. It’s better isn’t, Raylan? I can’t believe I was so scared.” Her words are pitched fanatically, like she’s just been converted to Jesus, only better. 

Raylan smiles at the thought. He feels more solid than before, less fuzzy, but his mind is still changed and he thinks it’s so strange.

“You ain’t scared anymore, are you, Raylan?” she asks now. “Boyd gave you a real pretty kiss.”

Raylan shakes his head. He touches the kiss at his neck. It’s hot, like a burn, or a brand. He likes that.

He sits up slowly, feeling so strange. His jeans are all dried and crusty from when he came for Boyd and his head isn’t so much aching as it is floating, but catching on a tether that thrums like a rubber band every so often. It’s vaguely pleasant but somewhat jarring. He thinks he might like Boyd to kiss him again. He bets that will fix it.

“No,” he replies. “I ain’t scared.” He doesn’t think he ever was though. Not really. Not like Ava was scared. Boyd wouldn’t let him be. He thinks that’s so...good of him, in a vague way that he knows he would have never thought before Boyd kissed him.

Before, he stops and thinks about that more. It seems so far away now. Like another lifetime, another person.

He looks up and Boyd is standing in the doorway. Ava makes a noise, but Boyd is looking right at Raylan. He meets Boyd’s eyes and when he does that rubber band thrums again. 

“You like it, don’t you, Raylan?” Boyd asks.

Yes, he does. 

It’s so certain. Raylan doesn’t think before he would have liked anything so certain as he feels now. But it’s freeing in a way he’d never thought of before. He knows, he _knows_ Boyd is going to take care of him. 

He remembers what Boyd said, that no one would love him like Raylan. Raylan loves that. Boyd doesn’t want anyone the way he wants Raylan to love him.

“Let me show you,” he says.

Boyd grins, dark eyes bright. He wants it, whatever Raylan wants to give him, and Raylan’s cock is already half hard.

“Another time, baby.”

Boyd tells him he has to go back to Lexington and Raylan goes, because Boyd says, “I’ll come and kiss you again, Raylan, don’t worry,” and because Raylan loves him. He does.

He goes into work the next day and everything is the same, except incredibly different and no one knows but Raylan. It makes him feel powerful and calm. Art jokes that he’s become some kind of zen master overnight. Raylan just smirks.

When Boyd’s name comes up again for the weed church and that boy, Raylan keeps his face straight and his voice even. “I don’t think we’re gonna find anything to pin on him, Art,” he says. 

“Well shit,” Art says and they talk about other things for a while.

Boyd comes to see him. 

He comes under the cover of night. He gives Raylan a kiss, the sharp kind, and Raylan gives him everything he wants.


End file.
